AVERAGE RATES OF WAGES (NOT ACTUAL EARNINGS) FOR MEN IN 1886
| Per Annum | |
| Average of Wage Census (38 Industrial occupations) | £64 |
| Railways (for 1891) | 60 |
| Building Trades (for 1891) | 73 |
| Seamen: Mercantile Marine, including estimated value of food and berths | 65 |
| Royal Navy, including value of food, etc. | 65 |
| Army (Non-Coms, and men). Including value of food, etc. | 48 |
| Domestic Servants (large households). Including value of food, etc. | 68 |
| Employees in Lunatic Asylums. Including value of food, etc. | 60 |
| Employees in Hospitals and Infirmaries. Including value of food, etc. | 61 |
| Unweighted Average | £62 |
In his report already referred to, Sir Robert Giffen, after detailing the average rates of the above table, says (p. xxxiii): "Thus in nearly all these trades the average rates are about the same as the average rate in the Census of Wages Summary." But the table does not include the badly paid agricultural labourer, the largest group of all, and the figures for seamen, etc., are, it should be observed, swollen by estimates of the value of board and lodging.
Finally, Sir Robert Giffen arrived at the general conclusion that "the broad results shown by the census summary would not be sensibly modified by including the great mass of other employments not comprised in that summary."
In January 1893 Sir Robert Giffen gave evidence before the Labour Commission and submitted the facts I have detailed. He prepared a general estimate of the proportion of the national income then taken by the wage-earning classes, and his evidence on this point (questions 6909 to 6914) is summarized in the following table:—
EARNINGS OF MANUAL LABOURERS IN 1886
(Sir Robert Giffen's estimate for the Labour Commission)
| Number. | Annual Average per Wage-Earner. | Aggregate Earnings. | |
| Men | 7,300,000 | £60 0 0 | £439,000,000 |
| Women | 2,900,000 | 40 0 0 | 118,000,000 |
| Boys | 1,700,000 | 23 8 0 | 46,000,000 |
| Girls | 1,260,000 | 23 0 0 | 29,000,000 |
| 13,200,000 | £48 0 0 | £633,000,000 |
There can be no question that this estimate of Sir Robert Giffen's somewhat exaggerated the actual earnings of manual labourers as a whole. In the first place, it was too much to assume that the 24s. 9d. per week or £64 per annum was representative of the whole of adult male labour. Without introducing agricultural labourers (the largest group in the country), general labourers, postmen, and other ill-paid workers, the unweighted average of the table on page 24 is £62. If £60 per annum had been given as the average rate of wages of all the adult male workers in 1886 it would probably have been an exaggeration. It was not given as a rate of wages, however, but as the actual earnings of the men after all allowance made for short time, unemployment, sickness, accidents, strikes, lockouts, stress of weather, etc. Sir Robert Giffen appears to have assumed that all the adult male workers of the United Kingdom were employed on the average about 50 weeks out of 52, and were paid at the average rate of £64 per annum!
In 1866 Leone Levi, in estimating the manual workers' earnings, assumed that four weeks per annum were lost. Dudley Baxter in 1867 pointed out, in criticism of Leone Levi, that if four weeks' "play" were all that need be allowed "England would be a perfect Paradise for working men."[6] Dudley Baxter, in view of the circumstances of his day, allowed ten weeks for "play" in making his estimate, and there can be no question that he was nearer the truth than Levi. At the present day the level of employment is very much the same as it has been for the past forty years, while sickness, accidents, and the weather are still with us. We need not wonder, then, if Professor A. L. Bowley, who has given the subject of wages so much attention, bases his estimates upon the loss of six weeks' work per annum through sickness and holidays, and makes an additional allowance for unemployment, while also assuming that 10 per cent. of the working population only get casual or irregular work, bringing them in about half the amount shown in the Wage Census.[7]
If the estimate given to the Labour Commission had allowed for six weeks' "play," the average earnings of men, women, boys and girls would have come out at £40. 5s. per annum instead of £48, and the aggregate earnings, therefore, at much less than £633,000,000. Leone Levi's estimate for 1884, allowing for only four weeks' play in the year, was £521,000,000. This figure is too large, but it is over £100,000,000 less than that of Sir Robert Giffen.